Men and Women work alongside each other, doing equally heavy and dangerous jobs, frequently dying at the workplace.

After losing nearly all his sight in an accident at the works, he is now an itinerant musician, playing his fiddle at taverns, wakes and social gatherings throughout South Wales.

They include the genteel Miss Thrush the Sweets who has sold her shop in Pontypridd, and is secretly enamoured of Gideon, even though she only sees him about once a year.

Annie Hewers and Megsie Lloyd are lusty young girls out for adventure, Many Irish navvies have also arrived, including Big Bonce, Belcher and Lady Godiva.

Travelling through Maesteg towards Pontypridd, Gideon comes upon Sun Heron, a fiery young two-fisted Irish girl who attempts to steals his meagre food, claiming to be starving.

He starts going with Sun, who has decided she wants to marry him, but Dic is cautious, preferring the freedom to chase various girls, including the molls who gather at the Iron Bridge.

Winter comes and the iron trade contracts; the owners reduce wages and many people starve or freeze to death.

The ironmasters, Guest and Crawshay, and magistrate Bruce, are barricaded in the Castle Inn by newly arrived soldiers.

Dic, at Sun's pleading and the urging of Morgan Howells, goes up onto Aberdare mountain to be safe from the violence, although he feels a strong loyalty to his mates.

After several unsuccessful attempts at parley with the ironmasters, and the arrival of more soldiers, most of the men and women, who have been marching under a Red Flag, lose heart and start to disperse.

On the day that Dic is to be hanged in Cardiff, large crowds come to witness the execution, most believing him to be innocent.

He states that he was in fact present at the meeting with the owners at the Castle Inn, but left by the back door, not the front as was alleged, and did not attack Black.

As he is about to be hanged, he declares; "O Arglwydd, dyma gamwedd" ("Oh Lord, here is iniquity") Crowds carry his body to its final resting place near Port Talbot.

The novel earlier describes Abbot, a barber, insulting Sun and thus getting into a brawl with Dic, for which Abbott vows revenge.

Suddenly she clenched her hand and swept back her hair, and as the Hangman placed the noose about him, she cried, her voice shrill: Die hard, Dic Penderyn.